The agony of the rat or the slaughter of a calf remains present in thought not through pity but as the zone of exchange between man and animal in which something of one passes into the other. - Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy?

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

A Post of Links

This is going to be far less comprehensive than previous posts, and I know I am missing a lot of good stuff (apologies in advance).

First up, the deadline for abstract submissions for the conference, The Revolution of Time and the Time of Revolution, is Feb. 1st. Get them in, people. The conference itself is really coming together. Many of the submissions so far are simply wonderful looking. As well as strong traditional submissions, we also have a few performative or artistic submissions that also seem quite amazing. Come join what is sure to be a great conference.

As you know, Peter Gratton is the keynote speaker at The Revolution of Time and the Time of Revolution, and he also has a review of Nancy's The Truth of Democracy.

Levi has responded on the issue of Derrida, here. I have two quick comments, for now (and this might exhaust all I have to say on the subject at the time). (1) Levi's response treats Derrida as a serious and important thinker, whose philosophical system is one he has particular disagreements with. That's fair. Whether one agrees with Levi's assement of what Derrida says, or agrees with that critique of that position, Derrida is not being treated as a caricature. (2) Levi seems to indicate in his post that I had treated some of Derrida's critics in the form of a caricature. I don't think so. I think at times during the so-called 'Derrida Wars', there have been statements (perhaps purposefully hyperbolic) that have claimed that Derrida only writes about books or is only a destructive thinker. But I'm not invested in who said what or anything. And not all critics of Derrida have been reductive in the ways they have treated him.

Zamir doesn't confront what I call, following the term greenwashing, humane-washing. Because, for the most part, increasing the humane conditions of animals decrease profits market logic dictates that people don't increase humane conditions. But, one might object, isn't this why it is important that we demand more humanely raised animal products? Well, just as with greenwashing, humane-washing involves selling the image and myth of more humanely raised animals while not fulfilling this promise. Which makes far more market sense really. And we have seen this, over and over again. We have seen this with so-called cage free eggs, and we have seen this with humanely raised meat. Increased demand in both these cases didn't lead to better conditions, it frequently led to companies decreasing standards in order to gather the profits of higher demand.

Well, this was clearly the sort of term that was bound to be invented by a lot of people, and here is an interesting Grist article on the issue of humane-washing. Definitely worth a read.

Almost everyone has linked to this post by Jason Read on the dialogue between Judith Butler and Catherine Malabou on Hegel. And for good reason, go check it out.

Tim Morton takes up the issue if computer programming languages should count as a foreign language requirement. Ian Bogost follows up here. There is an interesting history over at PIC on that very issue. A while back PIC required three languages. Then it became three languages, but logic could count as a language. Then, it wasn't just logic, it was also things like computer languages. And then, it wasn't just logic and computer languages, it was a skill that would be helpful toward working on your dissertation. So, one woman did a dissertation on the way that women constitute their sociality during sewing and quilting, and she had to learn to sew and quilt for her dissertation. However, it was determined there was no real way to evaluate if someone had attained a skill, and so that requirement was eventually just booted. Leaving us still with a two language requirement. I'm not sure if any of this answers the question of if a computer language counts as a foreign language.

PACT is having a conference on "The Political Animal", in the broad sense of that term. I almost named my blog the political animal, but it was the name of the blog over at the Washington Monthly (at that time Kevin Drum blogged there), and so I decided on Critical Animal instead.

This is an annoyingly punned article on how a rooster in a cock fight killed the owner forcing him to fight. I link to this because so often people talk about animals in such passive terms, as if there is not constant and regular resistance.

I know I missed stuff, but Peter has been doing a good job at catching a lot more stuff that I have been missing, so start at this post and work your way through his recent blog posts.

This time is a song from Delta Spirit, "People C'mon". The music video has everything: Murder, Art, Intrigue, and a kick-ass song.